@ofkingsblccd | renly + edric | the red keep
renly was aware of two very important things, especially now that he was in danger of becoming as crabby and boring as stannis was as a babe: king’s landing really was the closest thing to an infected sore as any city could get, but he also complained far too much for someone who ridiculed stannis for doing the very same. yet with robert and loras dead and gone for so long now, the king’s landing he once remembered had faded into the past. it was almost as if he was experiencing the city anew. ( it was just as bad as it had always been, maybe even somehow worse, but who was renly to judge? judgement was only a flyaway hobby to him. ) after spending too long in too many strangers’ company, the lord of storm’s end had retreated back to the safe company of his favourite nephew instead. or was edric his only nephew now?
“ i used to hate that statue of robert, ” he muttered, features pulled into a tight wince as he looked at it. walking around the gardens, he’d forgotten the thing even existed - but here it was, looking all too much like every baratheon son did. “ there’s another one around the corner that looks exactly like stannis on his five-and-twentieth nameday, but don’t worry. ” he turned to his nephew, expression almost too neutral to even look bored, but blue eyes alight with amusement. “ it’s just robert a few years after he got married. ” edric was robert’s only recognised bastard; a son raised at storm’s end with renly himself, by renly himself. but they knew two very different versions of the king that was.
every moment spent in king’s landing was a moment too long for edric. though renly had made his semi-regular journeys to the capital during ed’s time in storm’s end, the bastard had never joined the retinue for rather obvious reasons. perhaps it would have been nice, to visit his father, but not at the cost of dealing with cersei lannister’s wrath. his time in the capital had been spent as it usually was - charming, chatting, making friends everywhere he went. but ed was muted, softer around the edges, desperate to go unnoticed where he’d usually make a scene. it felt wrong, as if he was constantly dressed in clothes too small for his skin, but he knew just how hard-won this temporary peace was. if it took trading his golden silks for tans, he would do what he needed to.
walking the gardens with renly was a much-needed reprieve. it felt like ages since the tension had left his shoulders, like ages since he’d last seen his only true family. absentmindedly, his gaze shifted over the statue before him - and then he froze. edric stood there for another moment before responding, gaze transfixed on the father he’d never known. “everyone always tells me i look just like him,” he mumbled, eyes squinting in concentration as if searching the stone for an answer to an unasked question. a beat, then, “they say you do too, but i clearly look nothing like your ugly mug.” the joke, clearly meant to lighten the mood, came with a cheeky smile on ed’s face as he leaned over to nudge his uncle.
2087
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